Mountain plover
Mountain plover
Charadrius montanus
Charadrius montanus
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Population, Conservation Status, Threats:
Mountain plovers are considered near threatened by the IUCN, and their populations are decreasing. Threats include loss of grassland to agriculture, and decline of associated grazers who keep prairies short-cropped like these plovers prefer.
Physical Description:
A shorebird exclusive to northern plains ecosystems, mountain plovers have long legs, long thin black beaks, and a white belly. Their plumage is mainly brown and tan, allowing them to blend into their prairie surroundings perfectly.
Overall mountain plover range from audobon.org. Breeding range is shown in light red, in scattered patches across the great plains. Winter range is shown in light blue and ranges from southern California and Texas to northern Mexico.
Habitat:
Mountain plovers, despite the name, rely on shortgrass prairie and high desert ecosystems. Fallow and recently harvested or plowed fields also mimic this shortgrass habitat they prefer, and plovers may often nest on agricultural lands. They seem to prefer recently burned and otherwise disturbed habitats, including overgrazed pasture land.
Behavior:
Mountain plovers are migratory, spending the breeding season in the northern part of their range, primarily Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. During the winter, they migrate to Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States.
Diet:
They are ground foragers, feeding primarily on insects. They feed in the way most plovers do, running for a period, then stopping to survey their surroundings, then quickly running forwards again. Their diet consists mainly of crickets, grasshoppers, and beetles, though they have been known to eat scorpions and centipedes, and, rarely, vegetable matter like seeds.
Reproduction:
During the breeding season, male plovers prepare nests, which they show to the female while displaying and calling. Once females select a male partner, they stay together throughout the nesting season, very literally splitting the job of incubating their young. The pair will make two nests and split the clutch (of an average of three eggs) between both nests, one being incubated by the male, the other being incubated by the female. Incubation takes roughly a month, and young are fledged in a little less than five weeks.
Associated Species:
Mountain plovers are thought to suffer from declines in prairie dog colonies, as their towns make for good plover nesting sites. They also suffer from loss of grazing species such as pronghorn and bison, as they rely on these animals to keep the prairie cropped short.
Illustration by Willow Sedam
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